Allison's Blog

What am I most proud of? I am most proud of how much my vocabulary has grown over the year. When I first started this year, I had a very limited vocabulary, barely knowing how to introduce myself with more than a name and what I like to do. I can now have a proper conversation with my peers about how my health is, what I am doing with my life, etc. and I am very proud of this.

Do I consider myself a Spanish-speaker?Why or why not? I feel that I am more of a Spanish speaker than I was before but I don’t think I can consider myself as a full Spanish speaker because I have a lot of areas to improve. But in the near future I think I can consider calling myself a Spanish Speaker.

What would I do differently if I could do the course again? If I was doing the course again, I would work more on making sure I really work on and memorize the -er -ir and -ar verbs, and all of the irregulars so I can conjugate quicker and more efficiently.

What are three concrete actions I can take to ensure that I am prepared for Phase 3 next year? I will not be in Phase 3 next year because I am not living here but Here are my 3 actions:

Work very hard on keeping my vocabulary over the summer by completing Duo-lingo lessons.

Memorize all conjugations for the different tenses so I will be ready to learn any new ways.

Try not to use any translating devices while talking or listening to others so I can learn to rely on my language skills rather than dictionaries.

Spanish class was a place we could learn something no one else on that floor could learn – how to conjugate Spanish verbs. This is like how muggles can not learn magic

Spanish is just like magic! You can tell everyone how to conjugate and everyone will think you are so smart you must be Hermione Granger because it seems so hard!

All it takes to get good at magic (if you’re a witch or wizard) is practice and hard work! If you practice and work hard during Unit three, preterite and/or the direct/indirect/reflexive pronouns, and you will be great at the ‘magic’ of the past tense and other parts of the Spanish language

To some people conjugating verbs is like going to potions class with Snape. But this is simply because they don’t know how to do it and have little to no success. Instead they must practice this art of Spanish ‘magic’ and is will soon become as if they are playing Quidditch.

Learning to conjugate is a hidden talent that you will only find if you are taught about it. Just like magic! Young Witches and wizards, particularly muggle born, don’t know they’re magic until someone shows them or teaches them how to do it.

You can mess things up and get things wrong and make mistakes just like Hagrid but you will always have a second chance.

You can become like Charley Weasley, take the skills you have learned and travel the o

Metaphor about Unit 3 : You must know the ropes of conjugation to steer the conversation correctly.

Quote about Preterite Tense: “Don’t let the past steal your present.” -Cherralea Morgen How is what you have learned relevant to other classes/material you are learning?

Learning a second and/or foreign language can help train your brain in mathematics. Nathan Collins explains this in his article for Pacific Standard, “[l]earning multiple languages trains the basal ganglia to switch more efficiently between the rules and vocabulary of different languages, and these are skills it can then transfer to other domains such as arithmetic.” In other, simpler words, learning a second language helps your brain to do something similar to multitasking. The same skills used while learning and speaking your second language are the same parts of your brain that are used while doing mathematics.

Write a headline of no more than 10 words to summarize your learning this unit:

Going to Phuket taught me many things including wilderness skills and peoples skills. But the main characteristic this trip taught me was to be grateful for what I have. We interacted with many small children who had near to nothing. We also painted the walls of a very small school. Before we added color to the walls, they were gray and dreary. YIS is such a colorful school it was hard to see such drab walls. The little children were ecstatic about the small amount of color we added to their school. One of our YIS students brought a bag of blow up balloons and blew some up for the Burmese school children to play with. It was amazing to see how a small everyday thing such as a balloon could bring such joy to a child. They played with the balloons for nearly an hour. The photos below show Marleen Walther playing with a Burmese Mon student with a yellow ballon. The photo on the right show one of the murals we painted on the Burmese Mon school walls.

One of the activities was going snorkeling. We learned the safety precautions of being on a boat, and being in open water. On the boat everyone must wear a lifeboat in case of any issue. We also learned how to safely snorkel. Never go alone, use appropriate gear, research where you are snorkeling before you go so you know what you will be looking for. We were about two hours on boat from the nearest city on a small island, searching the coral reefs for the effects human’s have caused such as pollution of the reefs. We were split into teams and observed the reefs; which fish were near and what the reefs looked like. If they were broken and gray, we knew they were beginning to die. The photo below a picture of the small island we snorkeled near.

The other challenging activity we participated in was hiking in the rainforest. We did research before we left about what animals and insects we would see as we hiked and what to do when we encountered them. We also talked about why we should never hike alone. As we hiked we observed the plants and animals around us. We were very lucky and were able to see a python and the rare red crab. We were sure not to go near or to touch any of the insects we saw. But the most challenging part of this adventure was the last two hours of the hike. We had to hike up the last hill and back down again. It had rained for nearly the entire day so the path was extremely slippery and muddy. We had to work together as an entire group and help each other trek through the incredibly hard trail. This was a live example of why to not hike alone because many people slipped and could have been injured if it weren’t for others. The photo below is the river we hiked along and crossed as we made our way through the rainforest.

Overall this trip has been one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I learned to appreciate everything I own down the the simplest items such as a pencil and clothes to wear. The children we interacted with had nearly nothing which showed how well we all have it, with somewhere to live and a nice school. I will never forget what I learned on this expedition. Last year we had fun by rafting and climbing but this year served others and helped others.

I feel very confident about Unit 1. I did very well on the listening and oral assessments. My week points were mostly in the writing and reading assessments. In the oral area of the unit I did very well speaking fluidly and with complete sentences. But I need to work on adding more of the unit grammar, taking risks by adding new words so I can learn from my mistakes. This is the opposite in my writing section of the assessments. I had a good idea of the unit but I had mistakes in the unit grammar and did very simple sentences that I did could have done before the unit – this shows that I didn’t show what I had learned. I need to take more risks, and know that it’s OK to make a mistake.

I did very well in the reading and listening area of unit 1. I understand the grammar and vocabulary of the unit and correctly answer questions about what I read or listened to. I need to work on using what I learned in the listening and reading assessments and tie them into my oral/speaking area. I learned a lot of new vocabulary and could use them while writing or answering questions but I did not use what I learned in my speaking assessments.

For the rest of semester one, my goal is to be able to speak and write with fluency and completion. I can do this by further improving my skills of what I have learned in unit one. To further improve my skills in unit one, I need to continue practicing what I have learned. I need to start talking to others and writing so I don’t lose what I have learned as we move on to a new unit.

First, I want to learn more vocabulary so I can understand conversations better. The more vocabulary I know the easier it will be to speak and understand the language. I hope to do this by listening in class to learn new words and also study hard.

I would also like to be able to have a basic conversation with anyone – meaning I can introduce myself, tell them about me and ask about them with proper grammar and tense (past/present/future) I think by speaking to other people often, I will become more confident with speaking. This goal ties in with the first goal because the more vocabulary I know the better a conversation I can have with other people.

My last goal is to learn about past present and future tense. To learn how to change the format or grammar of the sentence depending on the tense it is in. Then I can correctly say what and when I am going to do. This will help with the other two goals because knowing this can help me have a basic conversation and I can learn the different vocabulary and tie them in with the different tense.